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Intel Core 2 Duo E7200 Review

Conclusion:

Performing about where it should, the E7200 just does not deliver the goods consistently when compared to a similar speed quad core processor. In the gaming benchmarks it did fairly well overall. In quite a few benchmarks the little dual did overtake the quad core scores. In games where having more than two cores appears to be beneficial, the E7200 was outperformed. It did put up a good fight rather than laying down and just performing miserably. Sporting a high 9.5 multiplier and a 1066MHz core clock speed and only 3MB of L2 cache versus the 1333MHz core clock speeds of most of the other CPUs in the review (exceptions being the Q6600 and Phenom) and 6MB or more on the balance of the quad cores, my expectations were not really that high. When you go into it thinking that this $120 CPU wont even be competitive, I was pleasantly surprised. The gaming scores were reasonably close to those of the E8400 and when overclocked, there was a decent performance increase to make going after the additional MHz worthwhile. Speaking of additional MHz, the E7200 ended up with a massive 1.5GHz overclock at the end of the day. On a percentage basis, this is a 66% increase over the stock speed of 2.53GHz. Most, if not all, of the dual core CPUs I have had will make it to 500MHz on the front side bus speed. This little bugger pushed up to 540FSB, which when taken as a percentage based increase, would be over 100% (266 x 2 = 532MHz). For the $120 asking price, this is a steal to get an honest to goodness 4GHz CPU. Did I say these results were on air? No, you say? Well yes, they were. In fact, with the 4GHz tune, the E7200 runs at a cool 43 to 46 degrees Celsius under load. The only downside to this chip, if you can really even call it that, is the 1066MHz bus speed. This speed went by the wayside for a while but it is back now with the E7200 and E7300 MO stepping CPUs. If your build is under a severe budget crunch and you need to keep that build price down, the E7200 is not really a bad way to go if all you really want to do is game and the usual web browsing to your Myspace page. It offers decent stock performance and overclocks like no tomorrow to give you 4GHz performance that fits just about any budget.